The Thessalians recognize that he is determined to be their despot and not the president of a confederacy. The Thebans suspect him, because he keeps a garrison at Nicaea and has stolen into the Amphictyonic Council, and because he attracts to his court the embassies of the Peloponnesian powers and secures their allies for himself. Thus of his old friends some are even now his irreconcilable foes, others are no longer his hearty supporters, while all regard him with suspicion and dislike.